STILL WAITING: the need for culture change in the
Department of Immigration

March 5, 2006
—Brisbane— The QLD. Refugee Action
Committee held a one-day conference asking “Unfinished
Business: Where To Now For The Refugee Policy?” George
Newhouse was the keynote speaker.

I’m really honoured to be invited to address you today. I am
part of the legal team acting for Cornelia Rau, Vivian Solon and the
parents of Richard Niyonsaba.

I’m going to make an admission. I’m
relatively new
to the refugee issue. I’ve led a relatively cloistered
existence, but because what I found was so horrifying, what
I’ve learned through each of these women’s cases
and the death of Richard Niyonsaba, I have become a passionate advocate
and will continue to do so until the Department of Immigration changes
its ways. We’re here today to talk of “unfinished
business”. Yes, there is plenty of unfinished business with
that Department.

If you are all still waiting for culture change in the
Department of
Immigration (DIMA), I hate to tell you that will be waiting a very long
time before you see anything meaningful. The reasons for this are
complex. They range from the political imperative to win elections and
the manipulation of voters by fear and self–interest, to a
global clash of cultures being played out in the streets of Cronulla
and through our immigration policy.

From our first contact with Aborigines to the end of the
“White Australia” policy in the 1970’s,
Australians have had a poor record on immigration and race. There was a
short improvement during the terms of the Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and
Keating governments but changes in local and global politics have seen
the balance shift back against refugees and asylum seekers.

You might disagree with my assessment of the sources of our
immigration
policy but there is no doubt that it is ruthless and effective. Its
effectiveness is based on gutting the independence of the public
service, removing judicial oversight of DIMA officers and relying on a
decline in journalistic standards and public debate.

As a society we are just not interested in the misery of
others. In
part, this arises from a sensory overload. The pace of life has
increased; we are bombarded by the internet, radio, television
and mobile phones and the demands of our work lives and families deaden
us to the images of suffering each night. We respond to simple messages
— like race and difference. But simply pushing the
race button is not enough. The demise of Pauline Hanson proved that.

Most Australians are sophisticated enough to
understand that
wave after wave of immigration has been successfully absorbed
into our country — but the underlying debate has moved on
from race to a clash of cultures and there is no denying that the
events of 9/11 are etched in our communal consciousness and
its message resonates in our psyches. John Howard finds a willing
adversary in his “battle” with Muslim
fundamentalists and it is essential that more moderate Muslim
voices speak out against fanaticism both locally and internationally.

You don’t need to accept my view that an originally
racist
immigration policy is now being reinforced by global politics to see
that the sick culture in the Department of Immigration has not
changed. Yes, Petro Georgiou has affirmed the principle that children
should only be detained as a last resort and reduced the numbers of
people in detention, but the Immigration regime remains unscathed.

We still have a Migration Act that removes the rights of an
individual
to a day in court and promotes suspicion and prejudice. A DIMA officer
must, under section 189 of the Migration Act detain a person they
suspect of being an unlawful non-citizen and hold them until they no
longer have that suspicion. Their decision is not capable of effective
review. The Palmer, Comrie and Senate reports on the Solon and Rau
cases all criticised the operation and implementation of this section
of the Act. Most DIMA officers do not have the skills or analytical
framework to properly exercise their power to deny a person’s
freedom. Even a murderer has the opportunity to have their day in court
but not an asylum seeker.

To allow ill equipped DIMA officers to be the judge, jury and
executioner of a vulnerable person’s life is asking for
trouble. No wonder perfectly innocent people with mental illnesses are
being caught in this dragnet. You only need refer to the 300 wrongful
detention cases currently being investigated by the
Commonwealth Ombudsman to see the folly of our laws.

In the Senate report on the Removal Search and Discovery of Ms
Vivian
Solon, even Liberal Senators agreed that the section 189 of the
Migration Act, needs urgent reform and yet that recommendation has
never been acted upon.

When our High Court was asked to review the Migration Act they
chose to
reaffirm an apartheid system which strips alleged
“non-citizens” of the constitutional rights that we
allow even the most hardened criminals.

Far from learning the lessons of the Rau and Solon cases, the
government, driven by the demands of their department has actually made
it more — not less — difficult to get access to a
lawyer and to the courts. These are measures that would have ensured
that Vivian Solon would never have been deported and that Cornelia Rau
would not have been locked up and tormented for 10 months in Baxter.

The serious cultural problems within DIMA that were exposed by
Mick
Palmer and Neil Comrie continue today. The government has spent
hundreds of millions of dollars improving IT systems and buying coffee
mugs, mouse mats and t-shirts with the department’s new
slogan “People – our business” but the
lack of accountability, defensiveness and unwillingness to
engage in genuine self-criticism or analysis remain. The deep seated
cultural and attitudinal problems within DIMA persist despite all the
investigations and criticisms.

Early this year I contacted the Department after the death of
Richard
Niyonsaba, a 3 year old Burundian boy who died within hours of arriving
in this country, I might add, at the invitation of the Australian
Government. Richard had died as a result of the
outsourcing of the government’s International
Humanitarian Resettlement programme to a company
called ACL a private company previously involved only in English
language training. Following Richard’s death, I became aware
of another fifteen cases of serious neglect and abuse by ACL and I
wanted to make senior DIMA officers aware of these cases.

DIMA’s response was to “circle the
wagons”, defend their decision to outsource their
resettlement role to a profit–making venture and
deny that there were any problems. No meaningful investigation into
Richard’s death or of these complaints has ever been
undertaken by the department. DIMA has, in fact, commenced a smear
campaign against Richard Niyonsaba’s parents and the
volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure the safety and integration of
these vulnerable and damaged people.

Now it makes sense to me that if you have a group of
vulnerable people
who are rebuilding their lives in a new country and in an alien
culture, that they need intensive care and attention. Those needs
contradict the economics of a profit–making venture where the
only way to make money on a fixed price contract is to offer minimal
service and care.

Apart from putting people’s lives at risk, we now
have the
obscene situation where church groups and refugee volunteers in Sydney
and Newcastle are all performing ACL’s work for free and
subsidising their profits. There is objective evidence for these
criticisms of ACL. I have not heard a single complaint in areas of
Australia where church groups are supervising the reception and
resettlement of refugees. Only in Sydney and Newcastle, where ACL has
the primary care giving role, have such disasters occurred.

And what of DIMA’s attitude to deportees and
detainees? If
Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon are anything to go by, then nothing has
changed. The department continues to treat them both with contempt.
Cornelia Rau has not received one cent of compensation since being
discovered in Baxter over a year ago and the government continues to
torment Vivian Solon’s life through protracted arbitration.

Whilst there are less people in detention today and Amanda
Vanstone
pays lip service to the criticisms made of her department, the critical
measures that are required to change the department’s sick
culture — that is legislative reform and a return to judicial
oversight — remain as far away as ever.

Finally I just want to say to all of you again: thank you for
inviting
me today. You are at the forefront of the fight for justice for asylum
seekers and those in detention and I urge you to continue pressing for
an independent inquiry into the operation of the DIMA and the Migration
Act, and for the urgent return of independent judicial oversight of the
department to rein in the excesses of the cowboys in DIMA.

A humane society is judged on the way it treats its most
vulnerable
members and it is incumbent on all of us to continue the fight until
the checks and balances are in place to ensure that they receive the
protection they deserve. And I thank you for all the hard work
you’ve done.

This article, based on George Newhouse’s notes for his speech to the RAC conference
“Unfinished Business: where to now for the refugee policy?” held at the
CEPU conference rooms, South Brisbane on 5th March
2006, is reproduced here with his permission.